To Live Among Wolves
by fireflyfish
Summary: A father and his son are on the run from bounty hunters, five years after the creation of the Galactic Empire.
1. Scrublands

The trouble started when the bounty hunters shot them out of the sky to crash-land on a planet that was sparsely populated and on the edges of Imperial space.

The landing was brutal, ripping a hole in the hull as smoke rose up from the impact, black and strong against the stark blue sky.

The pilot and his passenger were defenseless in the semi-arid scrubland and they knew they had to move sooner rather than later, since it would take no time for the bounty hunters that shot them out of the sky to find them.

They gathered up everything they had and took as much water as they could carry before they left the crash site. The pilot, a tall man, carried his son to a safe distance before he hurried back and activated the ship's self-destruct sequence.

Darting back to his child, he gathered up their things and peered at the distant mountains, where the scanner promised an outpost and civilization. He supposed the Hutts would own it, or some other crime syndicate, but that didn't bother him.

Anything was better than having to deal with Imperials.

"Papa?" the young boy mumbled, peeking out from under the depths of his brown hood. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," he replied with a warm smile as he picked his pack up and slung it onto his back before taking his son's hand. "Why? Do you like it here?"

The boy looked around at the twisted short trees and the green, spiky plants that tumbled across the land in dangerous-looking piles. He reached out to one and let out a cry, pricking his finger before he father could swoop in to stop him. "It bit me!"

"Let me see," the father murmured, squatting down to examine the crimson drop swelling up from one chubby, pink finger. It was nothing serious but he hated seeing the fat tears welling up in the boy's blue eyes.

He pulled out a medical spray that would heal up the wound and take away the pain. His hands were gentle as he applied it. "There now…how does that feel? All better?"

The young boy looked at his finger for a long moment, turning it this way and that, bending the digit until he was confident the injury was cured. With a smile, he looked back up at his father and held out his little hand. "All better!"

"Good," the man smiled and took his son's hand as they started their hike to the mountains and hopefully a ride off of this planet.

Neither looked back as the ship exploded behind them.

It was nightfall when they decided to stop, making a small, rough camp in the middle of a particularly dense copse of trees. They lit no fire, nor hunted for food, as the father had seen the bounty hunters' ships streaking through the darkening skies overhead.

The son sat against a grey log, wrapped up in his brown robes, his hood pulled over his golden hair. He was chewing on a ration bar and taking long, messy gulps from a canteen.

The father pulled out a scanner, comparing the directions given there to the stars overhead. It would take them the better part of two days to make it to the mountains and the outpost the scanner called Gingensu.

Two days was a long time for them to be out in the open with hunters on their trail, but there wasn't anything he could do about that. He had to plan their next moves carefully and trust that they would be much more difficult to track on foot.

"Ancestors protect us," he murmured softly before turning to smile at the boy next to him, who was transfixed by the stars. "Beautiful, aren't they?"

"There's so many of them…" the young boy sighed, pulling his hood back to take in the fullness of the indigo-black heavens, studded with stars and systems. The father settled down next to his son and smiled, pulling him close and pointing to a particularly bright star. "Do you see that star? Right above the tree line?"

The boy nodded, taking another bite of his ration bar. "Yeah…it looks happy."

The father smiled. "That is Alderaan, a beautiful planet full of mountains and rivers. We went there once when you were very little."

"We did?" the boy echoed, looking up at his father wide eyed. "I don't remember."

"You were very young then, not much more than a baby," the father replied, his voice kind and gentle. "And that star? That's Manaan. That's where I taught you to swim."

The little boy smiled. "I liked swimming. And the fish people were funny!"

"I know," the father laughed, hugging his son tightly.

There was a long moment of silence between the two, the boy caught up in dreams of distant planets and future adventures with his father, whose grim thoughts were focused on if they were going to make it off this dusty rock in one piece.

 _Please, just let us make it to the spaceport. Just let us make it and then I swear we will settle down some place quiet for a while._

He wondered when he had started praying to deities he did not believe in.

"What's that one, Father?"

He followed his son's finger to a distant and faint star that was just now coming to prominence. He didn't need to look at the scanner to know the name of that star. That was the one star, the one planet they could never return to. The one that had been his home.

"That is Coruscant," he murmured, his voice soft and distant. "The Emperor lives there now."

"Can we go there?" the boy asked, fascinated, as if he could see something else beyond the sparkle of the night sky.

His father shook his head sharply and the boy could tell that he was not going to change his mind about this. "Why not?"

"It's not safe," the man said, suddenly very weary and exhausted. "And it's time for you to get some rest. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

"Awww! Do I have to?" the boy pouted. "Will you tell me a story first?"

After a moment the man nodded, his eyes growing soft as they gazed upon his son. "What story do you want to hear?"

"I wanna hear a story about the Jedi!" the boy grinned. "Please?"

"About the Jedi, eh?" he sighed and tucked his son up against him, his soft, pink cheek against his chest. "Which one? There were quite a few, you know."

"Papaaaa…" the boy muttered, squirming to a comfortable position.

"Ah, yes," the father chuckled, blowing his bangs out of his face as if deep in thought. "Where did we leave off with General Skywalker and his clone troopers?"

"The bug planet," the boy yawned as sleep began to steal over him. "I don't like bugs."

"Indeed," his father smiled and began the next chapter of the adventures of Anakin Skywalker and his intrepid padawan Ahsoka Tahno as they raced to the rescue of Obi-Wan Kenobi, a story he had already told his son a hundred times over. And he would tell it to him a hundred more until the sad day came when the old stories of Skywalker and Kenobi would no longer interest the child.

He prayed that day would never come.

"Papa! I'm tired!"

"We have to make it to that ridge before the sun sets," his father said, walking back to him. "I know you're tired, but we have to keep going."

They had already dropped a blanket, a bag of security spikes and anything else the father judged they could leave behind.

All that left was a med pack, some rations and the last of their water, and even that seemed like too much, weighing them down.

After three days of this, the boy was exhausted and hungry and his father looked worn and gaunt. The probe droid they found earlier had spooked them both and after a few well-placed blaster bolts to dispatch it, they had taken off at a run, stumbling over rocks until they felt safe.

That incident had also used up the last of the power pack in the blaster.

Things were not going well.

"My feet hurt!" the boy protested, sinking to the ground. "I don't wanna walk any more! I'm hungry and thirsty!"

The father took a deep breath and turned back to the dusty little boy on the grey-orange gravel.

His son looked up at him, his blue eyes full of weary defeat. His boots looked as if they had been walking over glass and the purple bags under his eyes worried his father. The mountains were closer, their shadow almost tantalizingly near, but both knew they weren't going to get there any faster like this.

"Come here," the man said, taking down his pack and rearranging this and that so it formed a makeshift carrier. Once the little boy was swaddled up in the fabric and straps the father carefully settled the whole contraption onto his back and started to plod towards the distant violet hills. If they could just make it to the slopes of the mountains they could hide in a cave long enough for the hunters to give up looking for the pair.

He hoped their luck would hold out long enough.

"Force protect us," he murmured as he picked up his pace and hoped he wouldn't burn himself out before they made it to safety.

They were at the edge of the shadow of the mountains when their luck gave out and the bounty hunters caught up to them on old speeders that looked like they were remnants of the Clone Wars from the previous night's storytelling.

The gang drove around the two in a wide, dusty circle, the whine of the bikes hurting the boy's ears. "Papa!"

His father stood his ground as the vehicles came to land on the hard orange and white rocks of the foothills.

The riders were a motley crew, a varied assortment of low-level thugs, trigger-happy Rodians and someone in mismatched and poorly maintained Mandalorian armor.

The man clearly in charge stepped off his speeder bike, one in considerably better shape than the rest. He wore a black synthleather jacket with a red scarf tucked into the collar. He brushed the dust off his sleeves and black-gloved hands before he walked toward his prey, a genial smile on his face.

"I'll say this for you, Itto. You led me and my men on a merry chase," the leader grinned, his black eyes alight with a cruel delight that reminded the father of enemy faces he had seen during the darkest parts of the wars.

He did not want his son to witness such horrors.

He held his hands open and loose at his sides and scanned the group around them. It looked like ten, maybe thirteen men with small blasters and a few grenades. Nothing that could do serious damage to a larger party but just enough to scare an exhausted and terrified duo that had been running for three days straight.

"How do you want this to go down?" the man in black asked, gesturing to his men, their blasters up and ready. "Now, if I were you, I would chose the easy way, one shot between the eyes and all your troubles are gone. Just poof! Enjoy the long sleep and become one with that Force thing those backstabbing Jedi were always prattling on about. If you choose the hard way, I'll have to be more… creative. Either way, I'm taking your body back to Jabba for the money. "

"And if I choose the hard way?" the man casually asked, his head tilting to the side, just a hair. "I have my son with me and, as I'm sure you can understand, I do not intend to part with him."

Behind the leader, the assembled bounty hunters looked at each other as they shifted in place. There was something unsettling about this dirty and tattered man, his blue-green eyes piercing from under his hood. His mouth was pulled back into a seemingly genial smile but there was something about it that set them on edge. They itched to fire on this unarmed man and his son, strapped to his back like a swaddled babe.

"He won't suffer," the man in black assured the hooded father. "And then you'll be together forever. I'm no slaver."

"How very moral of you," the father replied, looking over at one of the twitchy Rodians. "Your compatriot seems nervous."

The Rodian angrily burbled that he was going to take pleasure in shooting the pair before the man with the red scarf cut him off. "Shut up, you idiot," he said without looking behind him. "Now, do we have a deal? You make this easy and I don't get, shall we say, inventive in bringing an end to you?"

The father frowned for a moment, stroking his chin and his voice neutral. "I suppose I have no choice then."

He sunk down to his knees with his son on his back, much to the relief of the bounty hunters and their growing unease. They did not like him. They did not like his quiet manner and his calm presence in the face of death.

The little boy, however, let out a cry, terrified by all the men with guns and the leader's horrible smile.

"Papa! Papa! I wanna go! Papa!" the boy cried pitifully, his little fists curled up in the rough brown wool of his father's robes. "PAPA!"

The father sighed softly and reached up to pat his son's fist, hidden in the worn fabric. "Do not worry, little one. I promise you we'll be leaving shortly. Be patient and trust in the Force like I taught you."

The boy sniffled and let out another wail and the bounty hunters looked uncomfortable at the sound. Killing someone who had stolen from a Hutt was one thing, but cutting down a crying child in cold blood was something else entirely.

"Couldn't we just drop the kid of at some Alderaanian refugee station?" the mismatched Mandalorian asked the boss, turning from the kneeling man who sat with hands open, awaiting his fate. "He's just a kid."

"A kid who's seen all your faces and can describe you to the Imps," the leader retorted, shoving aside the patchwork hunter to point his gun straight at the bowed head of the man, his brown hair streaked with blond from the sun and a few strands of white at his temples. "Thanks for being such a good sport about this, Itto."

The blaster exploded into a hundred tiny sparks as the front half crashed to the ground in front of the kneeling man, now standing, a bright blue lightsaber in his hand, his son in the other.

The assembled group let out a gasp and a few stumbled backwards, stunned to see the weapon of the enemies of the Empire out in the open after six years of sinking into history and myth.

"You're…you're not Ogami Itto, are you?" the leader frowned, his black brows furrowed in rage. "Who are you?"

"Someone you do not want to mess with," the brown-haired Jedi smiled, an almost feral expression of confidence on his face.

He set his son down and told him to run and hide. The boy did so, practically vanishing into the dusty brown rocks surrounding the showdown. "Now, get back on your speeders and go back to your ship. Forget you ever saw us and I will let you live."

The Rodian started to back away, sputtering that no one mentioned the target was a Jedi. He turned to clamber aboard his speeder when the leader shot him in the back, sending the green body crashing back to the ground.

Looking at the other men, the man jerked his head at the Jedi, the message clear. They could either die trying to take the target in, or their boss was going to shoot them down as they fled. The easy and hard way applied to them too.

The gang opened fire.

"Fools," the Jedi muttered and then he was gone, leaping into the air with the aid of the Force, flipping over the heads of his enemies and landing with barely a sound behind them.

The Mandalorian turned first, firing off one angry red bolt after another, each one deflected with terrifying accuracy back into the small squad of hunters. The patchwork warrior charged him, firing as he ran, shouting a war cry that only seemed to make the Jedi angrier.

The cloaked man spun in a tight circle and neatly removed the Mandalorian's head from the rest of his body.

Completing his spin, the Jedi turned to the men in front of him and made short work of them, his blue blade cutting through armor and flesh as easily as it cut through the junked-up speeders they had been riding.

He looked around for his next target and found that he had finished off the last of them, except for the leader, who had thrown aside his blaster pistols for a rifle slung across his back.

The man fired, the bolts stronger and rattling the Jedi's bones as he deflected the attack. It had been a long time since he needed to block a Republic-issued heavy rifle, let alone a souped-up custom job.

He advanced toward the man in black, who, to his credit, wasn't backing down. With each step closer, the blasts grew harder and harder to deflect until he was within striking range.

"Stop or I'll shoot your kid!" his opponent shouted, turning to point his rifle at the boy's hiding place, a large boulder and some scruffy sage bushes. "I mean it! Drop the blade or I'll kill him!"

The Jedi arched an eyebrow and raised his hand in an almost casual gesture. "What makes you think I need this to kill you?"

The blade snapped off with a hiss that almost covered the sudden gasping, gurgling sound as the man in black began to choke, his eyes bulging in his face, his blaster rifle falling to the ground as he scratched at his neck, desperate for air.

The brown-robed man walked over to his son and picked him up, turning his face away from the horrible sight.

He grabbed his pack and started to walk back to the one speeder that hadn't been damaged in the fight, letting the bounty hunter collapse back to the ground with a flick of his hand. Air rushed into his lungs, just enough to beat back unconsciousness.

The Jedi settled his son on the front of the speeder humming calmly above the ground.

"Are you all right, Luke?" the man asked, looking down at his son's tear-stained face. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"It's okay, Papa," the little boy said, rubbing at his cheeks and smearing the dark tracks of his tears across this face. "It was just like your stories. Scary and fast."

The man nodded, his smile soft and gentle. "Yes. Very scary and fast."

"Why were they following us, Papa?" the boy asked, looking over at the dazed man on his knees and then up at his father. "What did they want?"

"I stole something that belonged to a very angry Hutt," his father explained, touching his nose and getting ready to climb on behind him. "And this is exactly why you, my dear boy, shouldn't steal fruit from the stalls in the market. But let's leave before any more friends of Jabba come for us."

"You Jedi bastard!" the head bounty hunter roared, staggering toward the two with his last bit of strength and a vibroblade out and flashing in the sun. "You bantha rutting bastard!"

Luke let out a cry as his father spun around and in one fluid motion cut down the charging man, his attacker's red scarf fluttering in the breeze of the speeder's hoverlifts.

The vibroblade and the hand attached to it fell to the ground as the dying man sagged against the Jedi, whose face curdled with distaste.

The bounty hunter had just enough breath for one last question. "Who… are you?"

"Obi-Wan Kenobi."  
The Jedi snapped his blade shut, feeling a perverse satisfaction in telling the truth for once.

The man fell next to the bike, dead before he hit the ground.

Obi-Wan shook his head, returned his lightsaber to its protective blaster pouch, and climbed onto the speeder behind Luke, who clung tightly to his waist as they sped off in the direction of the spaceport and the promise of escape.


	2. Empire Day

_Five years ago… Empire Day._

Two men sat at a polished table in a white conference room, discussing the lives of two infants with the clinical detachment of droid merchants. Or at least that's how it felt to Obi-Wan as he sat with them.

The girl was to go to Alderaan, raised in the arms of luxury, a dearly wanted daughter for the childless royal couple.

The boy was to go to Tatooine, to be raised as an obligation to people he shared no kinship with on a planet that was drowning in sand.

 _No!_

Obi-Wan covered his mouth, faking an expression of deep thought to hide the sudden, blistering rage that sprang forth within. He wondered if Yoda sensed his almost primal reaction, and was glad when Bail Organa took his leave of the two Jedi, none the wiser to his growing fury.

"More to say have you, Master Kenobi?" Yoda asked, coolly observing the exhausted Jedi in singed robes before him. "Anger I sense in you. Passed this test already, you have."

Obi-Wan took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, turning to look at the former Grand Master of the Jedi order.

"I do not understand why Luke is to be sent away to the Lars family," he began, picking his words with great care. "Surely there are other families, friendly to the Jedi, that would be more than willing to raise Luke. Tatooine is so… desolate."

 _Yes, that sounds more than reasonable. Surely Master Yoda will reconsider._

"No," Yoda replied, hopping off his chair with a puff of exertion. "To Tatooine and his family, the child goes. Far from the Empire he will be."

 _Anakin would hate the idea of strangers raising his son. To say nothing of doing so on Tatooine!_

No. He needed to make Yoda see reason.

"But Master Yoda," the younger Jedi said, following after his venerable elder. "There is no guarantee that the Lars family will want to raise Luke. They are not his blood."

"Understand, **you** will make them," Yoda said, a faint thread of disapproval in the rasping tone of his voice. "Best for both the boy and you, this is. Training I have for you during your solitude."

"Training?" Obi-Wan echoed, confused and irritated. Why, in the face of everything they had just lost to the Sith, was Yoda so damn set on this decision? Did he not understand that the Jedi Order was no more? That the customs and traditions of the Order went up in flames with the temple and the thousands of dead Jedi across the galaxy?

Was Obi-Wan to just leave Anakin's son on a sandy doorstep and hope these people he had never met were caring and compassionate?

Was he to give up even this child? After everything the Force and the Order had taken away from him, it now asked for this final piece of his heart?

This was Anakin's child!

This was all he had left of his padawan, his friend, and his brother.

This perfect, tiny being made of Anakin and Padme's love for each other.

Was there no end to the things he was to lose?

First the Dark Side stole Qui-Gon.

Then it murdered Satine.

Ahsoka left.

Padme died.

And Anakin…

Darth Vader devoured Anakin from the inside out.

A black hole of fear and anger had swallowed whole the light of the man who had trusted him, who had bled with him, who had saved his life more times than he could count. He was… They were…

Skywalker and Kenobi.

Two halves of a single warrior.

If Anakin could not raise his son, then Obi-Wan would raise him in his stead.

"I will raise Luke," he told Yoda, collecting himself, suddenly recalling his old master's defiance in front of the council and the quirked eyebrow of Master Windu at Qui-Gon's determination.

 _Gone. All gone._

"Qui-Gon's defiance, lives in you still," Yoda rasped, closing his eyes and running a clawed hand over what remained of his sparse white hair. "Dangerous that is. Strong attachment to the boy you have. Need that, you do not."

Obi-Wan said nothing, letting the memory of Qui-Gon's defiance hover in the air between them.

"Stop you I cannot," Yoda sighed and climbed back onto his meditation cushion by the room's large window. "Foolish and reckless, Skywalker made you."

Obi-Wan continued his silence, waiting for the tension between them, between the last two Jedi Masters in the galaxy, to ease.

When it became clear Yoda would say no more, Obi-Wan turned and walked out, his heart aching at such a bitter parting.

He prayed they would meet again and the ancient Master would see that he had made the right decision.

His mysterious 'training' would have to wait.

Back in the conference room, Yoda spoke to no one and everyone. "Your padawan, he is. Defiant and reckless, Kenobi has become, like Skywalker."

"He will learn in time." The low, warm tones of a long-lost voice filled the room. "No one will love the boy more than Obi-Wan. Trust in the Force, old friend, and all will be well."

"Your faith in this, share I do not," Yoda replied, closing his eyes and settling into a deep meditation.


End file.
